UK National Lottery removes its Monopoly and Scrabble online games in effort to prevent underage gambling

UK’s National Lottery operator Camelot announced new gambling rules have prompted the company to make changes, including taking away the Monopoly and Scrabble online games from its website. The products, which were part of its online “instant win” portfolio, have been axed in a new move that intends to protect children from gambling advertising. 

The restrictions, which were introduced by the Committee for Advertising Practice, seek to stop popular elements of youth culture such as sports and video games from being used in gambling ads., reports Mirror. This means they will not be permitted to feature or refer to top-flight footballers, celebrities, reality show stars and video games with strong appeal to under-18-year-olds. 

There have been a number of different Monopoly instant win games over the years, covering different price points and with slightly different play mechanics. The Monopoly Gold games were developed to be similar to the original board game.

The player would choose from a selection of game tokens and click on the dice to enable their token to move around the board. The products included mini-games and instant prizes as well, and players collected property cards as they moved around the board. 

A Camelot spokesperson stated that in order to register for a National Lottery online account, players must be over 18. They also pointed out that it is "widely recognized" that the risk of problem play associated with National Lottery products “is very low," according to the cited source.

“However, as a responsible operator, we’ve been reviewing our advertising over a number of months in line with the new CAP Code rules, which we knew were coming into force," they further stated. “As a result, we’ve removed - or not extended the licensing for - games such as Monopoly and Scrabble, and modified the artwork on our Fruity Bingo and Winter Wonderlines IWGs,” Mirror reported.